Local boy, MARK WEBBER, running for his new
Red Bull Racing team, was ninth fastest in the morning, but suffered transmission problems in the afternoon, leaving him a frustrated seventeenth.
American SCOTT SPEED/Scuderia Toro Rosa wasn't quite up to… speed. He was second to last in the morning and nineteenth fastest in the afternoon.
There were a few moments of drama, especially in the afternoon when RUBENS BARRICHELLO/
Honda Racing
F1 Team spun out his new earth car into a wall. He was uninjured, but the session was red flagged for his car recovery. The car suffered suspension damage. Other spinners included Rookie HEIKKI KOVALAINEN/ING
Renault F1 Team, JARNO TRULLI/Panasonic
Toyota Racing, ALEX WURZ/AT&T
Williams, KIMI RAIKKONEN/Scuderia
Ferrari Marlboro, Alonso, and VINANTONIO LIUZZI/
Scuderia Toro Rosso, who spun out twice, damaging his rear wing. Otherwise, mostly no harm, no foul.
There was much more for the more than 75,000 Friday fans to watch. The teams are now allowed to swap out engines after Friday practice, rather than having to save them. The teams can only have two drivers on track, so if a Friday/test driver is in the car, only one primary driver can be in the session. Spotting the drivers is made easier by the colour-coded camera mount covers on top of their roll bars. The lead driver on each team - the one with the lower number - runs an orange cover. The other driver has a yellow cover, and the test drivers run a black cover. In the second session, all drivers ran at least ten laps, with the average being 26 laps. Overall,
Bridgestone engineers said the average was 37 laps per car for the day.
The Australian Grand Prix Corporation, promoters of the twelfth running of the AGP in Melbourne, announced higher attendance figures for both Thursday and Friday than the comparable days last year.
